Poet Angela Locke takes Rose and Poppy across the valley

Just back from a wonderful couple of days in Cumbria. The excuse was that Jeannie Pasley from Carlilse City Council had asked Cumbrian novelist and poet Angela Locke and me to go up and read poems for something called ‘Love Parks Week’.

I’d never heard of  Love Parks Week, but apparently it happens in lots of places around the country and puts on events in parks and other green spaces to entice people to come out and enjoy them more in the summer.

Our venue was the lawn right under the vast east window of Carlisle Cathedral, but it wasn’t daunting: everyone was very friendly, there was a great PA system that actually worked with a mic you could actually adjust, and Jeannie was there to greet us and get everything set up. Amazingly, the weather was perfect – cool but dry, turning (at times) warm and sunny. And we got a wonderful audience – people drifted in and out but the maximum was up to around 40, and many people stayed for the whole hour-and-a-half.

Angela Reads - under that towering east window!

It was lovely to read with Angela, a well-known local poet who has also just published a beautifully-written and deeply engaging travel book, On Juniper Mountain, about her travels in Nepal and how she came to found the charity Juniper Trust.

Afterwards I was able to spend some time with Angela and her husband Colin at their fine old house under the slopes of Bowscale Fell at Mosedale, near Penrith. We did some walking in the Mosedale Valley with the dogs and I was able to enjoy the gorgeous garden they’ve made in front of this beautiful traditional cottage – which was once painted by Sheila Fell, with L.S. Lowry in attendance. I have to say Lowry isn’t my favourite artist and even Fell gets pretty depressing, so the reality, with the warm evening light falling across the drifts of honeysuckle, was idyllic in a way that I definitely prefer, though neither artist would have countenanced it in their work!

Garden at Bowscale Cottage: drifts of honeysuckle, and Carrock Fell beyond

Anyway, a big Thank You to Carlisle City Council, and please invite me back! And thank you also to Angela and Colin, the perfect friends.

Oh, and for more about Love Parks Week and what might be on near you, go to http://www.loveparksweek.org.uk/

Well, time to catch up. So much (too much) has happened! A couple of weekends ago I spent Saturday at Manchester’ Contact Theatre, taking part in UNSUNGFEST, an independent festival of art, poetry, performance and music. 

Matt Byrne, Festival Organiser Extraordinaire, de-stresses with a well-earned pint

It was a brave venture, organised by Matt Byrne, Justin Dooley and James Byrn. They took over the whole theatre space for the day and had a constant, rolling audience with people coming in and out throughout the day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

My share was the 7 p.m. slot, reading poems with fellow Manchester poets Jon Glover and Linda Chase – both notable teachers of creative writing as well as local celebrities. It was a great session: Jon magisterial, reading his moving and nearly-surreal poems about adventures in America (snakes under the house!) and the weirdness of having MRI scans; Linda, chromatic in the spotlight with matching red shoes, hair and A4 binder, entertaining us with her sexy and colourful poems about love on the bohemian fringes of the US counterculture.

Jon Glover: impressive, moving, surreal

Before that I was able to catch a good set from Steven Waling and Simon Rennie (loved a line from his poem ‘Carbon Copy’ – ‘The cocooned insect dreams the same dream as the dozing philosopher’. I can imagine Blake coming up with that!) And a fine reading from the sensitive Helen Tookey, with her haunting, introverted poems coloured and perfumed by the Wirral seashore.

Out of the Shadows: Helen Tookey - a fine, sensitive poet

Matt organised the whole thing on a shoestring and it was an amazing achievement. Let’s hope he’s already planning next year’s FEST and that it won’t remain UNSUNG!

At last I’m in paperback. My book Travels on the Dance Floor has just appeared in the new format – and at half the price! – from publishers Andre Deutsch.

I’m pleased that they’ve kept the same funky, deeply colourful, slightly gritty look for the cover design (a bit pale in this jpeg – the one at right is more accurate!) – I wanted it to reflect the look of the beautiful, battered buildings of Cuba and other Latin American cities, where nothing is pristine, but the used-and-abused look only adds to the charm of the cityscape.

But they have added a corner-flash saying that Travels was listed as Authors’ Club Dolman Best Travel Book 2009 – something I’m very proud of, even though the actual prize was won by a more scholarly tome. It was a very short short list, believe me.

What has delighted me even more than the listing has been the wonderful response I’ve had from readers – and by no means only from people who dance. People still come up to me in the street, at parties, at literary events, or they email me, to tell me how much they enjoyed it. Typical comments have been ‘I tried to read slowly because I couldn’t bear it to finish.’ ‘It was written so beautifully that I could see everything in my head like a movie in full colour.’ 

Hector - Panama City bus artist

Am I boasting? Of course. But I’m also full of gratitude that I’ve been able to give readers so much enjoyment. A matter of sharing the delight I myself took in the adventure.

Travels sometimes gets referred to as my ’salsa book’, but the truth is that I used dance as a way into Latin American and Caribbean culture generally: a way to get close to people, to learn from them, to explore the sides of these countries that the tourists don’t get to see.

I travelled through Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and ended up in Miami, Fla. I took lessons in the local dance styles in each country, and I explored the clubs and dance halls. I met magicians and pagan priests, policement and prostitutes, poets and musicians. I met a guy who made a living painting pictures on the sides of buses, an haute couture designer,  and several lunatics. All of them were fascinating. And I met them pretty much on equal terms. I got robbed, I got arrested, I got lost, and I had the most wonderful time – better than I could ever have imagined.

Aïda: her Colombian smile brightened stressed-out Caracas!

I fell in love with these countries, their music, their culture and their people. And since I wrote the book with total honesty – and absolutely no regard for political correctness - I have to say that I fell in love above all with Latin American women, surely some of the most beautiful in the entire world. You will meet many of them in the book, and I hope you’ll be as enchanted by them as I was.

Whether or not you dance salsa, tango or anything else, enjoy!